The Fallen Child
by BlackSandHeart
Summary: You've always heard the same mocking voice in your head for years and years. But recently it's starting to get louder and louder and with it comes an array of emotions that are starting to make you question your own sanity. Or are you just making everything up? Prologue for Undertale. No spoilers!
1. Chapter 1- Anxiety

**-Warning-**

 **Reader discretion advised, some material in this story may be sensitive for some individuals because of details into topics such as suicide, depression, and anxiety.**

 **A/N:** **Wow it has been quite some time since I've been on here. Wonderful to be back and part of another trash fandom! :D Anyways, should be back for now and once again it may be daily updates? Maybe.**

 **Disclaimer: All of Undertale goes to Toby Fox. If you haven't played the game yet, seriously do. But, this story contains _no_ spoilers of the game. You're safe from that here!**

 **Special thanks to my beta: Amicus Mortis! (Bless your dear soul)**

Chapter One= Anxiety

Opening your eyes slowly, you find yourself staring at the white ceiling above your bed until you feel a stinging sensation in your eyes. Quickly, you lift your hands and rub your eyes to get rid of the feeling. Even though you had a full night's sleep last night, you can still feel exhaustion weighing heavily on you. A yawn escapes your lips as the rubbing seems to have satisfied the stinging feeling and you stretch, lifting your small arms into the air. You watch your lucky blue shirt's sleeves fall down to your elbows as you stretch.

The smell of a good breakfast cooking is the next thing you notice as you drop your arms by your sides. You roll over on the top bunk of the bunkbed you share with another orphan and look to the door where the smell is coming from. You can hear your roommate still snoring loudly underneath you. The bright sunlight streaming through between the cracks of the blinds causes you to squint in order to see the rest of the messy room.

Pictures of Mt. Ebott and other nature places cover the walls, none of them straight and organized. Clothes, yours and your orphan roommate's, are scattered along the floor. Drawers with clothes hanging out of them line one wall and two desks next to them full of schoolwork and sketches remind you of what's to come for the day.

A sudden feeling of dread settles on you as you look at the homework on your own desk. It wasn't like you forgot any homework. In fact, you're ahead in class for once and on top of all of it. Not like the teachers noticed, though. Yet that thought seemed to cause the feeling within you to grow. You can feel your stomach drop in fear and your heart pound as you grip the white bedsheets. School. You don't want to go to school. You didn't like school at all.

Yet it is an easy thing to accomplish. You sit there, pretend you're paying attention, write notes, go home, and do the homework. Repeat until the weekend. It's an easy day to day thing to do. Completely perfectly fine.

So why do you feel like this?

The dread within you doesn't seem to be comforted by your thoughts of how easy school is as you find your breath starting to pick up like you are about to hyperventilate. What's going on? Your hands shake as you grip the bedsheets while feelings of anger and confusion flicker through your mind. Why are you acting like this? Why are you being like this? Why are you thinking like this? This is completely ridiculous.

You force yourself to take deep breaths until your breathing settles. After a moment or two of giving yourself motivation to move, you finally drag yourself out of bed. Your whole body feels weak and limp as you slide off the top bunk and onto the floor in front of your sleeping bunkmate. You stare at the child as they sleep, peaceful and blissfully unaware of the horrors of school.

Now what was _that_ thought about?

More deep breaths. It's okay. You are going to be fine. It's just school. You remind yourself of this constantly as you start to move towards the door. Carefully, you avoid the clothes scattered on the floor like your room became a minefield. It's just school. You continue to assure yourself that everything will be fine over and over again as you reach the wooden door and pull it open. As you do, you are almost blinded by a stream of sunlight pouring through the windows. What was so hard about going to school? It was never this hard before.

Shaking your head, you try to swallow your unknown fear and dread about the day, but to no prevail. You force your way down the long hallway marked with other doors for other orphans. It's fine. Everything's fine. Everything is perfectly fine. It's just all in your head. You remind yourself this over and over again as you carefully move down the stairs. Your hand runs along the peeling wallpaper to your right as you hear the sound of laughter from the other children awake below you.

You find your way into the mess hall and stand in a long line to get food behind a group of giggling girls as they talk about the random crush of the week. You were never interested in this kind of stuff. Maybe that was why everyone considered you an outcast.

The feeling of dread is still within you as adults hand you a plate of pancakes. Your hands are shaking and you're starting to feel sick too. You move away from the line and to an empty table in the back corner of the room. As you sit down, you notice people starting to avoid your table entirely to sit with their friends.

The syrup drips off your pancakes and onto your plate as you grip your chest, feeling your heart pounding. What is wrong with you? Seriously. This is just a normal day at school. You need to get it together. Breathe. Everything is fine. You're fine. You're just overreacting.

Someone suddenly sits at the table in front of you, causing the entire table to shake. You jump in fear at the sudden change, looking up quickly and grabbing for your plastic knife as a weapon of defense. Your hands shake as you grip the knife tightly before releasing it when you see it's just your roommate. Oh. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. You're okay. You're okay. You remove one of your hands from your heart and grab your plastic fork to try to eat.

"Did you see the sunrise today?" your roommate asks. You glance down to their plate as they quickly rip apart the pancakes with a fork and start devouring them in big bites. They already have their backpack on their back and adventure gear on with water bottles and bandanas. In the back of your mind, you wonder if they're going to try to find a way up Mt. Ebott instead of going to school again. "You can see the ocean glistening in the sunlight! So did you? Did you see the sunrise?"

You quietly inform your roommate that you hadn't seen the sunrise. Yet as soon as you finish informing him, you realize that talking suddenly seems to be very hard as the dread continues to eat at you from the inside out. It feels like there's something stuck in your throat and it's stretching uncomfortably, threatening to rip out of you and be free. What if it came out and was actually a monster like in the stories the adults would tell the kids to scare them? The thought makes your breath come out just as fast. More irritation pricks at you as well as the fear and dread as you grip the checkered tablecloth. Deep breaths, you remind yourself. Deep breaths. It's fine. It's just school.

 _"Just school?"_ The voice in your head is back and you grip the tablecloth even tighter than before as the voice laughs in delight at your fear. _"It's not like you're going to have to deal another day alone again! Or that you'll have teachers ignore your pain and other students give you all those weird looks! It's going to be a wonderful day full of more suffering for the both of us!"_

Everything seems to go into slow motion as you take shaky breaths. Your roommate continues talking in front of you about adventure and sunrises, but you can't focus on what exactly they're saying. Everything they say begins to blur together and doesn't make sense anymore. Soon it all fades into a faint and distant echoing sound. Can they not see what's going on to you? Are they that blind and ignorant that they can't notice you're practically hyperventilating? Can they not see your signs of distress? You feel sicker now. You feel like you're drowning. You can't breathe. You feel tears coming into your eyes as the voice in your head laughs again.

 _"Oh come on. Stop being such a big baby. It's just school. What's so bad about being there with all these people who_ hate _you? You're such a crybaby. Suck it up."_

The lump in your throat is suffocating you as you try to keep down your tears. Through the haze, you can hear yourself breathing heavily. Tears are dripping down your face and they feel like they're on fire from how hot they feel against your cold face. You can't see anything anymore, just a black room with a green little hill in the middle of it. There's someone on the hill. Someone you can't make out through the blurriness in your vision.

Suddenly, the lump in your throat feels like it's trying to jump out. To escape by force. It's burning your throat and it rises into your mouth, filling it. You can't breathe at all now. You're drowning on land. You're dying. Is this what it feels to die? You quickly turn your head and release the lump, throwing up.

You vision suddenly comes back and you find yourself staring in confusion at the mess you have made all over the floor and on the table. Your body is trembling as you grip the tablecloth and feel the tears on your face. You're sniffing, trying to keep the snot from falling down your face as well. An acidic taste is left in your mouth and you're panting heavily.

With the sound of you panting, you realize there's an uneasy silence in the room. You lift your head slowly, realizing there's drool running down your chin. You wipe it away in disgust and slowly look through your short brown hair to look at the other orphans in the room.

Your heart drops deep into your stomach and the dread returns ten times as hard as you see that everyone is silent. They're all staring at you. Looks of disgust and annoyance sit on many of their faces. The rest have looks of pity. Even the adults have similar looks as they watch you from afar. Nobody makes the first move to help you out, all seem content to stare at you first.

Finally, a few adults come over to help you with concern on their faces now. They put up signs for the other children to watch out for the slippery floor and one leaves to grab a mop. Another adult helps you to your feet and they continue to help you stay standing.

You find your voice shaking after a few moments of silence and ask the adult if you have to go to school. The other children are whispering to each other now. They're talking about you, you just know it. Were they making fun of you?

"No, you're sick." Was the simple answer and with that, all the tension leaves your body. You almost collapse to the floor from relief, but the adult helps you stay standing. The dread and the fear had left your body like they had suddenly sprouted wings and flew away. The sick feeling had left just as quickly with it. You find yourself almost crying from relief. You aren't entirely sure why you feel relief when school isn't hard anyways and quickly you scold yourself for feeling like this. This is ridiculous. You could've put up with another day of school.

 _"How pathetic."_ The voice taunts quickly. _"Make an impression on the adults so you don't have to go to school. What a useless wimp."_

With their words, a feeling of sadness settles in on your soul and you lower your head to stare at the marble floor beneath your feet. They're right. You did make an impression to not go to school.

As the adult helping you stay standing starts to lead you back to your room, your roommate quickly asks you if they can have your unfinished breakfast.

-XXXXXXX-

You find yourself unable to get up and out of bed hours later. Lying on your side, you stare blankly at the pictures of Mt. Ebott in front of you. Rumor had it that everyone that goes up the mountain never comes back. You're not sure why your roommate finds such interest in a death mountain when every adult tells children to stay far away from it.

The room is dark now that the sun is high in the sky and no longer shining through your window. You look at your hands, staring at the lines running through them before putting your face in them. A sigh escapes your lips as you feel dread starting to settle in for going to school tomorrow. Not again.

 _"You know…"_ The voice starts to say.

You quickly tell the voice to go away. It is not helpful.

 _"That's what you always say, but deep down you're listening to me. Sooner or later you'll see that I'm right."_

You find yourself unable to respond.

 _"I can't believe you can't handle something as simple as school. Really. I bet I could go to school and do a better job than you could."_

Some part of you wants to challenge the voice's words, seeing how it's just imaginary, but you are also too tired to even try to argue with it. You decide to say nothing again to the voice. Besides, if you started talking aloud to an invisible voice, people were going to start to think you were crazy. You take deep breaths and try to think of happy things, like the last time you saw your parents when they visited you.

But you can't. Why did you act like this today? It's never happened before. Sure over the past few months you had started to feel sadness every time you went to school, but that didn't explain what happened today. What was that? And why was it attacking you against your will? Maybe you were sick and after a bit of rest, everything would go away.

You drift to sleep slowly, the voice still taunting you in the back of your mind, reminding you of your worthlessness to not being able to handle a single day of school.


	2. Chapter 2- Social Isolation

**Thanks to ElliebearArts for the review and to Amicus Mortis for being my beta! :D Both mean a lot to me.**

 **A/N: See? Daily.**

Chapter Two= Social Isolation

By some miracle, you've managed to make it to your school without feeling any dread or fear. In fact, you feel determination for once. You are determined to prove the voice wrong and determined to not let the last few day's… incidents… stop you. You are silently grateful the kind adults at the orphanage let you stay in your bedroom to recover your strength and courage. You also applaud yourself on a job well done as you make it to your seat and take off your backpack. Breathing in deeply, you take in the smell of pencil shavings and absolute boredom.

You glance around at the other students as they wander around, talking with each other. Their laughter fills your ears as you painfully notice the large circle of isolation that they leave you in. Awkwardly, you pull out your school supplies, listening to the heavy thud of the books hitting your desk. It feels almost as if they're all staring at you.

Except, none of them are. They seem too engrossed in each other's conversations to pay attention to you. Their smiles, high pitched laughter, and conversations seem so noticeable to you suddenly as you feel like only a spectator. Only able to watch, but unable to join and be a part of them. You look at the way they stand close to each other, notice some wearing similar clothes, others wearing friendship bracelets; all of it slices into you painfully. You are an outcast.

Suddenly they're quickly running for their seats, pulling out papers and books frantically. They hurriedly whisper to each other and quickly you understand their frenzy. The teacher is coming. They're pretending that they're working instead of being honest that they spent the first few minutes of class socializing. Silently you wonder what that must've felt like. It seems like ages since last time you had a real friend.

You grip your pencil as a lonely feeling creeps into your soul. The teacher comes in and greets the class before quickly starting the lesson without much of a thought. It's math. Something about math. Except you can't seem to focus on it as you notice your pencil shaking with your hand.

It's not like being lonely is a problem to you. You've been alone before. You're used to being alone and in some cases forgotten and left behind. Yet, no matter how hard you convince yourself that it's fine, the longing for a friend grows within you. You just want some person to get you. To understand you. To do the silly things with you that you both enjoy. You want that. You want that so badly.

Maybe people like them don't exist. You frown at the thought as the teacher's words fade away. Only you and your desk seem to exist now as you stare at the graffiti other students left behind on it. There are hurtful words on it, none of which are directed to you at least. With that thought, you lean forward onto the desk and cross your arms, resting your head on them.

In fact, nobody here is rude to you. Not ever. Sure you get some weird looks when you say certain things, but not a single hurtful word has ever been said. You lift your head again and frown as you realize that nobody even notices you exist. You are nothing more than a whisper in the wind in their minds. A forgotten memory when you leave that will never return.

 _"They don't care about you."_ The voice returns and you cringe slightly. After so many peaceful days of it being silent while you stayed at home, it feels like the voice is cutting and ripping your soul apart. You grip the pencil tighter. _"If you disappeared forever, nobody would notice. And nobody would care either."_

You inhale deeply to try to focus on the teacher again and ignore the voice. You look at the teacher's glasses, how they reflect in the light and make it impossible for you to see their eyes. He's wearing a white colored shirt to look important as well as black sacks, the same ones he seems to wear every day. As you focus on the teacher, you are grateful to notice the voice shutting up.

The teacher is explaining something about multiplication with large numbers. He points to the whiteboard and uses various colors to help students in the class understand what he's trying to say. Around you, students are either hurrying to copy it down, stare blankly into space, or talk amongst each other quietly to not get in trouble.

You wonder silently if people think you're the kind of kid to also stare into space. Do they have no idea how hard it is for you just to come to this miserable place? Do they not understand that sometimes you cry yourself to sleep in absolute fear of coming here? To come only to be forgotten about? To be ignored? To be hated? To be unappreciated? To be forgotten?

The pain in your heart is back twice as hard and you grit your teeth.

You take a deep breathe to try to focus your thoughts. Calm down, it isn't that bad. It's all in your head. It's all in your head. You're making this up! It's as easy as that! You need to just breathe and everything will go away and be fine. It's just taking awhile for you to get better. You'll be good again someday.

 _"We should make them suffer like we have."_

And with that, your pencil snaps. You jump in alarm and snap back into attention to watch the top half of your wooden pencil sail across the room. Fear is pounding in your chest as the pencil piece hits another student on the back of the head. You watch in alarm as the child angrily looks back to see who it was. He rubs his head angrily and glares at the student behind him who had been drawing pictures, unaware of the incident. In fact, it looks like nobody even noticed what happened, not even the teacher.

Before you can even react, the student suddenly punches the other one square in the face. "Hit me, and I hit you back!" He yelled to the student he hit. Before your very eyes they're suddenly wrestling and trying to throw each other out of their seats. You feel your heart start to beat wildly as you're helpless to watch, gripping the remains of your pencil. It wasn't his fault! It was yours! And it was completely an accident!

"I didn't hit you!" The other student cries, finally thrown from his seat and onto the ground. He quickly gets to his feet again and lift his fists defensively as the student who hit him stands. His face is red. "It wasn't me, I swear!"

Everyone else in the class is staring at the two as they glare at each other. Quickly, the teacher comes over and steps in between both boys, intensely staring from one to the other. "I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in my classroom." He said to both of them sternly. Shamefully, the boy who got hit lowered his head as the one who hit him stared defiantly onward. "Go to the principal so you can explain yourselves this instant." He points to the metal door of the classroom.

Both boys leave, glaring at each other as they go. You wonder how good of an idea it is for the teacher to send them off by themselves without supervision, but you don't want to question. Especially when you can see the top half of your pencil on the floor by the boy's desks. If they found that pencil half and saw your broken other half…

You spend the rest of class dreading the thought of what could happen if anyone realized that you were the one who caused the fight.

-XXXXXXXX-

For lunch, you always hide in the corner of the courtyard, away from other students. Here you feel safe next to the tall oak tree that sits there with you. Its leafy green branches blow in the gentle breeze, bringing you a sense of comfort. Your parents had said that they loved trees and wanted to grow an orchard. You wonder if they were finally able to make one and if they had, were they coming to get you soon?

A lonely feeling settles on your soul again as you look down at the small dirt hill you made. The dirt that is still on your hands feels cool and moist, perfect to grow a garden in. The green grass underneath you is usually full of weird, gross bugs you can poke at or stay away from, whatever you choose. It's hours of endless fun by yourself over here.

Yet, you can't help but wish there was someone here with you. You look out onto the playground on the other side of the field and watch the sea of children your age run around on the set or talk in the hot sunlight. There used to be another group underneath the tree with you, but after a while they left and they now sit in the boring lunchroom.

Bitterly you remind yourself that you don't need friends. You have your weird adventure roommate at home who never comes to school, and when he does it's so you can listen to their feelings instead of your own. You have your books to read, your bugs to hunt, your animals to look at, your trees to climb. Who needs friends anyways?

I do. I need friends. You find yourself answering. The thought makes your heart hurt even more. It's like someone's stabbing into you with a sharp knife. The knife is digging deeper and deeper and twisting as it goes into your soul. You lift a hand to your lucky blue and purple striped shirt and grip at where your heart is at. It makes the feeling go away slightly, but soon it's back just as strong.

Why can't real friendships exist? The kind that seem to exist all around you? The legendary friendships that seem to exist in every TV show or video game? Why isn't there someone who just completes you in friendship? You've heard of soul mates before, but at this point they didn't seem to exist either. You've lost so much and there doesn't seem to be a point to even bother trying again.

 _"There isn't such thing as real friends. They're just going to hurt you and abandon you like all your other friends did at some point."_

For once the voice may be right. You grip at your shirt tighter and pull your knees to your chest. You've gone through so many "friends". All of them have left you to go somewhere else or abandoned you for better friends. It doesn't help that you've moved schools too and the old friends you had forgot about you. What kind of friends were they if they don't even bother to try to remember you?

You put your face in your knees as another lump forms in your throat, but you manage to swallow this one. Friendship is a luxury, but not a necessity, you tell yourself bitterly. A hardness seems to grow within your soul as you grip at a nearby stick that had fallen off the tree.

You lift the stick up after a moment and stare at it as you turn your head on your knees. You look at the strange markings on it. All the markings tell you that this stick has survived countless storms and years of being in the sunlight. It can survive anything. Slowly, you look up at the tree and ask the tree if things will get better.

The tree doesn't answer, but you didn't expect it to.

Your gaze shifts to look past the tree. In the distance you can see Mt. Ebott rising high into the sky. It seems so green and full of life. Everything that lives on it looks to be so peaceful, so happy, and so much better off than here.

You wonder silently what it must be like to be standing on top of the mountain, looking down at all the little people below you. What it must be like to be above the struggles that this place brought upon you. What it may be like to not be held down by this anymore. The thought actually makes you smile as you imagine no longer feeling like this anymore and some part of you longs to climb the mountain.

Too bad everyone that goes up there never comes back, you suddenly remember. The smile fades quickly and is replaced with a faint frown. You look away from the mountain and the sadness from before returns, chilling your soul and making you feel sick again.

For once, the voice is silent and doesn't taunt your thoughts. Some part of you finds relief in the silence, but you are also uneasy. You don't like the voice. It's been here ever since the problems started hitting you and it hasn't gone away since. You wonder if there's a way to get rid of the voice. Perhaps you should talk to someone about it.

 _"They'll think you're crazy and lock you up in those insane asylums. Then you'll be stuck with just me in the end anyways. At least then, you'll never have to worry about fake, heartless friends!"_

So much for the silence.

Your gaze focuses on the stick that is still in your hand. With it, you draw random shapes and spirals in the dirt. Even though you're not the best artist, you still find some relief in focusing on this instead of the pain inside of your soul.


End file.
